The ACC does not have as many quality programs as the Big 12, Big Ten or SEC regularly produce. That's the best explanation for why the league has ranked outside of the top four nationally in each of the past four seasons, according to KenPom.com. Too many of the ACC's big brands haven't been good lately.
But there's still real strength at the top of the ACC, which expanded to 18 teams by adding Cal, Stanford and SMU for 2024-25.
North Carolina played in the national championship game three years ago, earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament last season and should be a top-10 team this season. And, as my CBS Sports Network colleague Pete Gillen once famously said, Duke is Duke. So I don't expect, nor does any so-called Bracketologist expect, the ACC to lead all conferences in bids to the 2025 NCAA Tournament. But the ACC does have at least two teams that are clearly equipped to win the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
Each of our panelists is projecting Duke and North Carolina to finish first and second in the ACC, in some order. Among the fascinating aspects of this perceived conference race is that one of those teams (Duke) will be led by a 17-year-old freshman phenom (Cooper Flagg) while the other is headlined by a fifth-year senior (RJ Davis) who will turn 23 in two weeks.
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It should be a fun race.
Duke and UNC will meet for the first time on Feb. 1.
ACC Preseason Player of the Year
RJ Davis | G | North Carolina
For all of his greatness at the collegiate level, Davis is not generally considered to be a high-end NBA prospect, which helps explain his return to UNC for a fifth year after he was a consensus First Team All-American last season. The 22 year-old New York native averaged 21.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists for a North Carolina team that secured a No. 1 seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. His return is why the Tar Heels are clearly the ACC's biggest threat to Duke.
ACC Preseason Freshman of the Year
Cooper Flagg | F | Duke
Flagg is entering college with as much hype as any recent prospect -- and he has a chance to become the youngest Wooden Award winner in history. On offense, he can dribble, shoot and pass. On defense, he can guard his position, block shots and rebound. Flagg's ability to impact winning is uncanny for a player his age. He'll be college basketball's biggest attraction this season with his first marquee game scheduled for Nov. 12 against Kentucky in the Champions Classic.
Four more players to watch
Chase Hunter | F | Clemson: Hunter is the leading returning scorer from a Clemson team that advanced to the Elite Eight of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. He averaged 12.9 points and 3.2 assists last season in 32.8 minutes per game.
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Ishmael Leggett | G | Pitt: Leggett is the leading returning scorer from a Pitt team that finished 33rd at KenPom.com last season. He averaged 12.3 points and 5.5 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game in his first year with the Panthers after transferring from Rhode Island.
Khaman Maluach | C| Duke: Maluach is the highest-rated prospect in Duke's top-ranked recruiting class besides Flagg. He's a 7-2 native of South Sudan who represented his country in the 2024 Paris Olympics at the age of 17.
Hunter Sallis | G | Wake Forest: Sallis never really figured things out in two years at Gonzaga but busted through after transferring to Wake Forest. He averaged 18.0 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists while shooting 40.5% from 3-point range in 35.4 minutes per contest last season.
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ACC predicted order of finish
| 1 | |
| The consensus here is that Jon Scheyer should win his first ACC regular-season title in his third season after taking over at his alma mater following Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski's retirement. The main reason expectations are high is the arrival of Cooper Flagg, the consensus No. 1 prospect in the Class of 2024 and favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. The 6-9 forward is the centerpiece of a top-ranked recruiting class featuring three other five-star prospects -- namely Khaman Maluach, Isaiah Evans and Kon Knueppel. They'll join a couple of notable veterans in Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster to create what should be Scheyer's best team to date. | |
| 2 | |
| The Tar Heels are returning five of the top eight scorers from a team that won the ACC regular-season title before securing a No. 1 seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. The star of the group is RJ Davis, the reigning ACC Player of the Year who was a consensus First Team All-American last season after averaging 21.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 34.8 minutes per game. He'll be accompanied by a top-10 recruiting class highlighted by five-star freshman Ian Jackson, five-star freshman Drake Powell, Belmont transfer Cade Tyson and Vanderbilt transfer Ven-Allen Lubin. A second trip to the Final Four for fourth-year coach Hubert Davis is among the realistic goals. | |
| 3 | |
| Steve Forbes has achieved a pair of NIT appearances in his four years at Wake Forest but remains in search of his first trip to the NCAA Tournament with the Demon Deacons. It should come this season, though, thanks in part to the return of Hunter Sallis, a former five-star high school recruit who struggled to find a role in two years at Gonzaga but flourished after transferring to Wake Forest, where he averaged 18.0 points and 4.1 rebounds last season while making 40.5% of the 5.4 3-pointers he attempted per contest. Two of the other top-five scorers are also back -- namely Cameron Hildreth and Efton Reid. And let the record show that Omaha Biliew is the latest former five-star high school prospect to struggle at his initial school (Iowa State) before transferring to Wake Forest. If Forbes can tap into Biliew's potential the way he did Sallis', the Demon Deacons could challenge Duke and North Carolina at the top of the ACC standings. | |
| 4 | |
| Whereas Wake Forest benefitted from its best player (Sallis) withdrawing from the NBA Draft and returning to school, Clemson was not as fortunate. PJ Hall remained in -- only to go undrafted. It was a good development for neither him nor the Tigers, who are coming off of just the second trip to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament in program history. Still, Clemson should be back in the NCAA Tournament this season thanks to the return of Chase Hunter, a 6-4 guard who averaged 12.9 points and 3.2 assists last season. This will actually be his sixth year at Clemson, meaning Hunter will soon be one of the few student-athletes in history to appear in six different seasons for the same school. | |
| 5 | |
| One of the stranger facts connected to Virginia's program is that the Cavaliers haven't won a game in the NCAA Tournament since winning the national championship in 2019. In their subsequent three appearances in the Big Dance, they're 0-3 with losses to Ohio, Furman and Colorado State. Will that rough streak be snapped this season? Perhaps. But the Cavaliers did lose four of the top five scorers from last season's team that finished third in the ACC with Isaac McKneely and Andrew Rohde serving as the only returning starters. That means Tony Bennett will be relying on a lot of new pieces in new roles to try to return his program to the place where it was when Virginia won six ACC regular-season titles from 2014 to 2023. | |
| 6 | |
| Miami backed its unlikely run to the 2023 Final Four with a 15-win season that closed with a 10-game losing streak, making the Hurricanes the ACC's most disappointing team last season. But the Jim Larranaga's program is positioned for a bounce-back campaign thanks to the return of double-digit scorers Matthew Cleveland and Nijel Pack. The addition of Virginia Tech transfer Lynn Kidd gives the Hurricanes a third player who averaged double-digits in the ACC last season. And five-star freshman Jalil Bethea projects as somebody who will become the fourth Miami player under Larranaga to be selected in the first round of the NBA Draft. | |
| 7 | |
| Only two schools finished in the top 30 at BartTorvik.com without making the 2024 NCAA Tournament -- St. John's and Jeff Capel's Pitt Panthers, the latter of which went 12-8 in the ACC, and 10-3 in its final 13 games before Selection Sunday, but still landed on on the wrong side of the bubble. That was a tough break for Capel, who has guided the Panthers to a top-four finish in the ACC in two straight seasons but only has one postseason appearance to show for it. The good news is that four of the top six scorers are back -- most notably Ishmael Leggett, a 6-3 guard who averaged 12.3 points and 5.5 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game last season after transferring from Rhode Island. That should be enough to have the Panthers in the at-large conversation again. | |
| 8 | |
| It's unbelievable how far into the ground Kenny Payne ran Louisville's program in two years at his alma mater, where the whole thing served as a reminder of how sometimes good ideas produce terrible results. It's now Pat Kelsey's responsibility to clean up the disaster, and he did enough in the months after getting the job to ensure Louisville should go from embarrassing to respectable immediately. Credit the transfer portal, from which Kelsey lured Chucky Hepburn, who just averaged 9.8 points and 3.0 assists in three years at Wisconsin. Another key piece is Terrence Edwards Jr., the reigning Sun Belt Player of the Year who is talented enough to help the Cardinals compete for a trip to the 2025 NCAA Tournament. | |
| 9 | |
| The NC State team folks fell in love with last season during that improbable run to the Final Four is mostly gone. The only returning starter is Michael O'Connell, who averaged just 5.7 points in 25.1 minutes per game. That's among the reasons Kevin Keatts' Wolflack are expected to finish sixth-or-worse in the ACC for the seventh straight year. Overachieving shouldn't be ruled-out, though, in part because NC State is returning some notable role players -- namely Ben Middlebrooks and Jayden Taylor. Dontrez Styles and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield are the transfers most likely to impact the rotation early. If they both meet expectations, the Wolfpack could be back in the NCAA Tournament. | |
| 10 | |
| Micah Shrewsberry made a prediction after his first season at Notre Dame ended last March with a loss to Georgia Tech in the first round of the ACC Tournament, promising that the Irish will not return to the ACC Tournament on a Tuesday again. To avoid that fate, Notre Dame will have to finish in the top eight of the ACC standings, which is far from a guarantee even if the Irish should be better thanks to the return of four starters -- most notably Markus Burton, who averaged a team-high 17.5 points and 4.3 assists in 33.8 minutes per game last season. He'll be joined again by Braeden Shrewsberry, Tae Davis and J.R. Konieczny, giving Notre Dame the kind of roster-retention lots of schools struggle to achieve in the transfer-portal era. | |
| 11 | |
| Damon Stoudamire's first year at Georgia Tech only resulted in 14 victories -- but three of them were against Duke, North Carolina and Clemson, schools that all made the Sweet 16 of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. So there were some highlights, for sure. And now three starters from that team are back -- namely Baye Ndongo, Naithan George and Kowacie Reeves, each of whom averaged at least 9.8 points while playing at least 27.8 minutes per game last season. That's a solid and experienced core that could have Stoudamire competing for his first trip to the NCAA Tournament as a coach when March rolls around. | |
| 12 | |
| Adrian Autry finished a respectable 11-9 in his first season as Jim Boeheim's successor despite losing starting center Naheem McLeod to an injury after just 14 games and rotation piece Benny Williams to a suspension in early February. But it's possible a step backwards is on tap given that five of the top seven scorers from that team are gone, among them leading scorer Judah Mintz, who averaged 18.8 points per game, which ranked second in the ACC. Eddie Lampkin Jr. is the most recognizable of the incoming transfers after averaging 10.6 points and 7.0 rebounds last season for a Colorado team that won two games in the NCAA Tournament. But what Syracuse enrolled might not be enough to offset what Syracuse lost and help the Orange avoid a notable slide on the conference standings. | |
| 13 | |
| If you're ever wondering how important it is for an athletic department to upgrade conferences when presented with the opportunity, understand that SMU's move from the AAC to the ACC hinged on the school forgoing nine years of television revenue, which is valued at more than $200 million. That's a lot of money, sure. But this was still a jump worth making given how it should change the longterm trajectory of SMU's program by, among other things, replacing Rice and UTSA on the schedule with home games against big brands like Duke and Syracuse. First-year coach Andy Enfield, formally of USC, got an early roster-win when he prevented Chuck Harris, last season's second-leading scorer and most effective 3-point shooter, from entering the transfer portal. That's a nice building block -- but anything notable Enfield achieves at SMU probably won't come overnight, and the Mustangs landing outside of the top 10 of the conference standings in their first season in the ACC seems like a likely scenario. | |
| 14 | |
| After finishing in the top four of the ACC in three straight seasons from 2019 to 2021, Florida State struggled in the subsequent three years and is just 27-33 in the league in that span while finishing 8th-or-worse all three years. A bounce-back season could be on tap -- but it doesn't look like it, at least not on paper, with just one starter -- namely former VCU transfer Jamir Watkins, who averaged a team-high 15.6 points in 28.2 minutes per game last season -- set to return from a team that finished 79th at KenPom.com. If Leonard Hamilton, now 76, doesn't overachieve with this roster, he'll miss the NCAA Tournament for what would be the fourth straight year. | |
| 15 | |
| After making the first two NCAA Tournaments that were held after accepting the Virginia Tech job, Mike Young's program has slipped in recent years, evidence being the 18-22 record in ACC games over the past two seasons. And though there's nothing inherently bad about replacing five starters from a team that lost as much as it won in league play, teams replacing all five starters — like Virginia Tech is doing — rarely find success in a league this competitive. Even Young knows that. So it'll be interesting to see how the 2021 ACC Coach of the Year navigates this season with a mostly new roster headlined by Temple transfer Hysier Miller, who averaged 15.9 points and 4.0 assists last season. | |
| 16 | |
| Cal improved 149 spots at KenPom.com -- from 270 to 121 -- in Mark Madsen's first season with the school, which was obviously encouraging even if the Bears were only 9-11 in their final year in the Pac-12. In a perfect world, Madsen would be trying to build off of that -- but almost everybody who had anything to do with it is gone, specifically the top nine scorers from last season's team are no longer around. It's hard to envision a program losing that much and still being successful in a conference like this, which is the best explanation for why most believe the Bears will struggle in Year 1 in the ACC. | |
| 17 | |
| Stanford's administration finally ended the Jerod Haase era after eight years that resulted in zero NCAA Tournament appearances and 17 more losses than wins in the Pac-12. The school looked 900 miles north for Haase's replacement and hired Kyle Smith away from Washington State after he led the Cougars to an outright second-place finish in the Pac-12 standings while earning Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors. Maxine Raynaud, a 7-1 center, opted to remain at Stanford despite the coaching change, meaning the team's leading scorer and rebounder is back. But the other four starters are no longer in the program, which is among the reasons it'll likely be multiple years before Smith has the Cardinal competing for what would be their first trip back to the NCAA Tournament since 2014. | |
| 18 | |
| Earl Grant has one of the hardest Power-4 jobs in college basketball. That's inarguable. But even coaches with hard jobs eventually end up on the so-called hot seat after a while if certain levels of success aren't reached, and we can't be too far away from those conversations attaching themselves to Grant, who is 23-37 in the ACC through three seasons at Boston College with nothing better than a 10th-place finish in the league standings. Based on these projections, another rough season, perhaps Grant's worst at BC, is expected. If it goes down that way, the school's administration will have to make some big decisions. | |